Watching the Buddhist monks in their Walk for Peace brings to mind other walks. One walk remembered is Christian's walk which John Bunyan recorded in "The Pilgrim's Progress." The monks are walking from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C. and their walk seems rather direct compared to Christian's walk from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. It is certainly direct when compared to the walk I started nearly sixty years ago.
I was a month away from being eighteen years old when I came to that moment which marked the first step of my walk with Jesus. It was a journey that literally began on my knees as I knelt beside my bed and gave my life to Jesus. It was the first time I gave my life to Him and did not take it back. Like the walker, Pilgrim, I have found my share of diversions and temptations. I have climbed mountains that did not need climbing, wallowed around in boggy sloughs, and wandered off the straight and narrow way. There were too many times when I lost sight of where I was being called to go.
All I can say is that I have known a lifetime of God's mercy and grace. There has been no patience, forgiveness, and love in my life like that which God has given me over the years. There have surely been those times when He should have given up on me, dropped me like a hot potato, and said, "Enough!" but He has been everlastingly faithful and steadfast. Since the day I was conceived in my mother's womb, and perhaps even before, He has called me son and one of His. On this new day of a new year, I know I have been blessed beyond what can be measured and I am deeply grateful to Him for not giving up on me as I walked somewhere on the road behind Him.
Posts
